


In My Time of Dying

by drxpdead



Series: Spooky Week [3]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Character Death, Drinking, Epic time lapse, M/M, Sort of happy ending, Spooky Week, Suicide, This is so late for halloween, Very angst, ghost au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 15:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5133068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drxpdead/pseuds/drxpdead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil wakes up in the middle of the road and can't remember a thing, except his name and that he's dead. He tries piecing together the fragments of memories, and most of it is unpleasant. Everything he's lost and will never get to experience again...and how he ended up dead in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Time of Dying

The first thing he really notices is that he isn't cold. Which wouldn't be exactly strange, except that he was outside and it was snowing. 

He was laying on his back, staring up at the night sky warily, his mind working, trying to think, trying to remember what was happening. He's outside, surrounded by trees on both sides of him, and he looks over and sees he's right in the middle of some desolate road. 

My name is Phil. 

That's the only solid thing, the only idea that he knows for sure is the truth. 

He breathes out shakily, curling his hands into fists at his sides and trying to move, but his body doesn't seem to get the message, and he remains laying on the ground. Why is he there, what the hell is going on? Why can't he move?

Further off, he hears the telltale sounds of a siren, a high pitched wailing that slices through the quiet. 

He pulls his arms up, staring at his hands in the darkness as if trying to reassure himself that he actually does have a body at the moment. He can't seem to remember himself, can't dredge up a single detail about himself and who he is and why he is just laying here. 

The sirens get closer and suddenly, an ambulance screeches to a stop just a few feet away from him. And he looks over and sees a car, practically wrapped around a tree, and the paramedics are forcing the doors open. 

My name is Phil, and I'm dead. 

Because that's his body they pull out of the car, lifeless and unresponsive, and unless he has some superpowers he doesn't know about, he can't be in two places at once. 

But why is he in that car, why is he dead- but apparently not so dead, because otherwise he wouldn't be able to see any of this, and wouldn't be able to think and ask questions, and holy fuck, he has so many questions. 

He rolls over onto his side and heaves himself up onto his knees, barely noticing that he can't feel the hardness of the road either. Once he's on his feet, he shuffles towards the wreckage, watching the ambulance doors shut after they lift the gurney inside of it. There's about twenty different people swarming the area, police and paramedics and a few reporters, and even some random passerby who want to see what all the hype is about. 

"Phil!"

He turns at the sound of his name, thinking someone can actually see him, but no one is looking in his direction. 

"Wait, no!" Comes the voice again, and this time, Phil sees the source of the shouts, a young man with brown hair and a devastatingly broken expression, trying to pull out of the grip of a tall man, staring wildly after the ambulance. "No, please, I have to go with them, that's my boyfriend!"

"I'm sorry, sir," the tall man says in a thick accent. "He didn't make it."

"Fuck that," the man says thickly, wiping his blotchy face as tears start to fall down his cheeks. "He wouldn't leave like that, he can't be gone."

'Boyfriend'. The word echoes in Phil's mind. He has a boyfriend, or well...had one. But he can't remember, it's all gone and he can't think of a single moment he's spent with this man. 

He steps forward, towards the sobbing man, and stares at him. He's handsome, that's for sure, even with his puffy eyes and messy hair. Phil reaches his hand out, wishing someone could see him or something, because some twist in his stomach is telling him that he doesn't want this guy to cry over him. 

And as soon as his fingers make contact with his cheek, he's hit full force with colors. 

Dan. Dan Howell, yes his boyfriend, and best friend of eight years. 

Scenes, memories, fly through his head faster than he can process, moments early in the morning, with Dan kissing him awake, of lazy summer days trying to stay cool by sharing the one air conditioner in the living room. Late nights spent discussing their lives together, times when they were so angry at each other they wouldn't even speak to each other, and he even misses that already. 

"Oh, God," Phil mutters to no one, shaking as he remembers now. "Oh, Dan. I'm so sorry."

But Dan doesn't hear him, clutching the other mans coat tightly as he cries. 

The bustling scene is starting to die down around them as people lose interest and decide to go back to their daily lives. Phil envies them. 

"You can't just leave me," Dan whispers in such a somber tone, it almost makes Phil want to cry. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"I'm right here," Phil insists, his chest caving in at the prospect of never getting to live the rest of life. "Dan, I'm right here, look at me, please. I'm not gone, I promise I would never leave you."

"Let's take you home, mate," the tall guy says firmly, and at first Dan hesitates, but then nods slowly. It seems he's lost his will to try and prove that Phil isn't dead, and that everything is fine. 

"Don't," Phil pleads, following them to the guys car, uselessly trying to grab his and pull him back. "Don't give up on me, Dan."

He watches the taillights disappear around a bend in the road. Hopes and prays that it will turn around and come back, and see that he's right there, and that he's not gone. 

The road empties again as the police finish their work. 

And it gets dark as Phil waits. 

***

It's exactly a year before Dan comes back, and the only reason Phil knows that is because a few people sometimes stop on the side of the road and he reads the date on their phones. He hasn't moved from that spot on the side of the street, sometimes ambling down the long stretch of asphalt but never leaving. It's the only thing he can really call his own at the moment, that and the thousands of memories he has started to slowly get back.

Small moments that flash through his mind and leave him even more achingly empty than before. He remembers his family, his brother who's been with him through so much, and how much he'll miss them. He starts realizing how much he hasn't said to them, how much he hasn't done with them. 

All his friends, the people he trusts the most, and will never see again. God, he'll even miss going to work, despite the fact his boss was class A jerk and the pay was kind of shit. 

And he remembers Dan the most. How he would say he hated Phil every time he made a stupid joke, but still smiled for a few minutes after. How sometimes, Phil would wake up to him just looking at him, and blushing once he knew he'd been caught. 

And when Phil sees him again, well, he's not exactly expecting him to be piss drunk and rambling like a lunatic. 

He stumbles out of the car, a shiny, more expensive one then they'd had before, clutching a pint of whiskey and almost falling in his face, but managing to catch himself on the hood. His hair is curly, which he's always hated before, and his clothes are rumpled. 

Phil just watches, his chest tightening at how much Dan has lost himself.

"I'm a fucking idiot, I know," Dan says, or, slurs really. Phil steps closer, until he's right in front of him, even though he can't be seen. "And I know that if you were here, you'd.....hell, I don't even know. Probably call me stupid and then take care of me while I suffer through the epic hangover I'm gonna have tomorrow.

"I just don't know what to with myself, okay?" He continues, his voice straining slightly, and Phil can see he's on the verge of tears. "I had to.....I had to spend Christmas without you. And your birthday, fuck, I couldn't even get out of bed."

He pauses in his monologue, shaking his head as if to try and dispel the broken memories that seem to be running through his head. The action causes a few tears to fall, tracking down his face. 

"I'm sorry," Phil says uselessly. 

"And I hate myself sometimes," Dan continues. "Because I know damn well that's it's my fault, and I hate that I can't do anything to change it."

It's not your fault. Phil wishes he could reassure him, let him know that it was an accident, neither of them can change that. And he can't blame himself, it will do nothing but make things worse for the both of them. 

He still doesn't remember what happened that night, all he can dredge up is a flash of white light and screams, and then it goes black. Which is probably for the best, he doesn't know if he ever really wants to remember.

A car speeds by, honking and swerving around Dan, as he's sort of in the middle of the road, and barely keeps from hitting him. 

"Shit," Dan says wearily, rubbing his eyes. "I really shouldn't be out here. I just, needed some kind of outlet.

"You know, moving on isn't as easy as I had always assumed," he continues. The bottle in his hands drops to the ground, but it doesn't break, and Dan doesn't seem to notice it's even gone. "I'm not exactly an emotional person, at least, not outwardly, you know that."

Yes, Phil does know that. Dan has never been one to share what he's feeling, not even with Phil sometimes. He likes to deal with things by himself because to him, people are just a distraction to trying to make himself feel better. 

"And now look at me," Dan laughs humorlessly, running both hands through his hair agressivley. "Talking to myself in the middle of the road, like you can actually hear me or something."

He goes silent for a few minutes, leaning back against the car tiredly. Phil wishes so badly that he was there, physically able to wrap his arms around the mess of a boy in front of him, push him into the back seat and drive them both home. He misses home so much, and no amount of blurry memories is going to help him get over that.

"I tried dating again for a while," Dan admits, and Phil doesn't even want to begin to try and imagine something like that. "A complete disaster, let me tell you. He definitely couldn't handle all my fucking emotional baggage. Not like you could."

Honestly, Phil doesn't think anyone could handle all of Dan's personal problems the same way be himself could.

"I'm a mess right now," Dan says, shaking his head, as if trying to clear it from his alcoholic haze. " I should go, this...this isn't healthy, is it?" He laughs emptily again. "I shouldn't be driving either, not in my state, but who knows? Maybe I'll get to join you."

"Don't say shit like," Phil says almost angrily, shocked that Dan would even consider something like that.

But Dan doesn't hear him, just climbs back into the car and leaves, and Phil has no choice but to watch and pray he doesn't do anything stupid.

***

You would think that spending five years endlessly pacing the side of the road where you died would eventually get boring and a bit depressing, but it was actually quite the opposite for Phil; it wasn't as if he had anything better to do that didn't require a corporeal form. A few perks to not actually being alive: he didn't need to eat, sleep, or use the bathroom.

The only thing that kept him from literally going crazy was Dan's frequent visits.

The first few times, he'd been just as drunk as the first time, nearly passing out as he rambled on and on about how this whole thing was his fault and how he just couldn't cope without Phil. But as time passed, he became stone cold sober, and he got better. He didn't seem as sad and broken about Phil being gone, and he would even begin recounting happy memories about the two of them. He came at Christmas, and he came at Phil's birthday, and he came during the anniversary of Phil's death. Those times, he seemed more down and out, less capable of handling his emotions; Phil had seen him at his saddest, and at his angriest, when he would scream and cry until he couldn't talk because his voice would be gone.

Phil was just glad he didn't seem any closer to forgetting about him.

So when December 25th rolled around, Phil wasn't surprised to see Dan climb out of his car with tears in his eyes already. He doesn't expect this visit to be any different than they usually were.

"I've been..." He trails off slowly, his hair twisting in the sharp winter wind. "I've been trying my hardest to live my life without you, and... it's probably one of the hardest thing I've ever had to force myself to do. Because it's like, every time I've convinced myself that I'm okay, I'll see something, or I'll hear something that reminds me of you, and it gets so fucking irritating sometimes.

"It's been such a long time since I've seen you in person and, Phil, I'm so sorry, but I really don't think I can do this anymore."

He doesn't know what that means, but he knows that it can't be anything good. Not if Dan is this emotional, and he's always been a reckless person.

There's a pause, and in the distance, Phil hears the loud blaring of a tanker truck horn. This road is usually pretty deserted, but this time of year, it becomes busier as people rush to and fro from the city for the holidays.

"I mean, what other reason do I have to be here, if I don't have you?"

"What are you doing, Dan?" Phil whispers, shaking his head. Dan turns and faces the long stretch of road beside him, watches as a pair of headlights appear, coming closer along with the sound of a trundling engine.

"I love you, okay?" Dan mutters, visibly shaking as the truck gets closer and closer. "And no matter what happens, I will always love you, Phil."

He can't stop it, and at first he wants to believe he's overreacting, and Dan is just being a bit too dramatic. But he's not that lucky, is he? Christmas miracles don't happen when you're dead.

It happens in slow motion, and it's the kind of thing you can't help but watch. He wishes he could close his eyes and stop himself from seeing it, but how would that make things better in any way. The truck rushes past, a blur of headlights and silver metal, and there isn't even a sound to indicate the deadly event that has just happened right in front of him, but he knows. He saw it, and...

...and the bastard doesn't even stop, just keeps going as if he hasn't just hit a fucking person.

It takes a long time for Phil to fully process what the hell has just happened and when he finally snaps back into real time, he realizes it fees like his chest has gone, left him to deal with this situation by himself.

"Why the fuck would you..." He's not thinking too clearly at the moment, his mind is sluggish and his chest is rising and falling rapidly, even though he doesn't necessarily need to breathe. " Dan."

The street is empty when he focuses on his surroundings once again, and he's really fucking terrified to look around, and possibly see what's left of....that truck was too big, there's no way he would have survived that.

He can't help it, he falls to his knees in the middle of that road, the road that is now the location of his death and his boyfriend's suicide. And he wants to cry so bad, because it seems like the only reasonable reaction to this sort of thing, but he can't, and he hates that. And he also hates that, now, he doesn't have anything to stop him from going absolutely crazy, and he doesn't have anything to look forward to next Christmas, or his birthday, or his death anniversary, as melodramatic and weird as that might make him.

And it's like Fate has decided to tease him or something, because it starts snowing right then, thin specks of pure white falling from the sky and surrounding him as he sits there.

"Phil?"

The sound of that voice sends a thrill so violent through him, he's surprised he doesn't black out from it. He climbs clumsily to his feet, turns around so fast he gets dizzy, and almost sobs in relief.

Dan stares back at him, a mixture of confusion and terror on his face. Phil can understand, he was exactly the same way when he first 'woke up'. And damn, if Phil hadn't just physically seen what just happened to him, he would say to didn't he didn't look any different than before, no evidence that he was anything but alive and well.

There's a few seconds of them just staring at each other, with Dan most likely still overwhelmed at the fact that Phil is right there in front of him, that he can actually see him again, and Phil trying to figure out exactly how he's feeling about this whole thing. And then he has an armful of a crying Dan, burying his face into the crook of his neck and holding on so tight around his waist that, if he wasn't already dead, he'd be out of breath.

And god, he can actually feel him, the reassuring weight of another person in his arm once again, and he's missed that so much as well, just being able to hold Dan. 

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Phil demands, suddenly angry. About the fact that Dan has stooped that low, to the point of actually killing himself, just to be with Phil again. Phil doesn't care how good it feels to be able to be seen again, its still selfish and stupid. "I thought you...Jesus fucking Christ, I thought I'd lost you forever. Why would you do something like that?"

Dan stares at him blankly for a moment, wiping his face with a sniff. "I'm sorry, I don't, really know what I was thinking. I just missed you too much." His voice is scratchy, but soft at the same time.

"That is not a valid reason for jumping in front of a moving truck," Phil replies. He reaches up and touches the side of Dan's face gently, his fingers just  touching the edges of his hair line. "You've just lost everything-"

"I haven't," Dan cuts him off. "Phil, you have no idea how fucking heartbreaking it was, waking up every single day and knowing you weren't there. I couldn't function the first month, I barely got out of bed, and I couldn't go an hour without breaking down. So, I'm sorry if it's a stupid reason for you, but this is possibly the best thing I've done in the last six years."

Phil nods slowly. He's not going to try and argue about it anymore, because, really, it's not like they can really do anything about it. And he's not going to lie and say he isn't happy to see Dan again, minus the fact they're both kinda dead.

"You're older than me now, aren't you?" He asks, and Dan laughs, the first time he's done so in a long time.

"Only by a couple years."

"Well, now we're both old men."

Dan rolls his eyes, but he's still smiling so damn hard, and it feels just like before, like nothing has changed. Except that pretty much everything has changed for them, but they don't really care. 

"So, what," Dan questions, looking around them. Phil notices him pause, and wonders if he's just now seeing the only thing that remains of himself. "Do we just stay here for the rest of our life? Or, deaths, I suppose."

"Dunno," Phil answers. "Doesn't really matter, does it? It's not as boring as you might think, sitting here. Especially when you have company."


End file.
